Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-07

8 the certificates provided for by 1t shout,
; be located on reserved land. That is tn
: plain English of the argument, whe
e rendered into English. But they refus
4 to be sc universally liberal in their con
t struction of the prohibltory word
t in the Confederate act, and vii
| not allow them to repeal tn
> Greer county reservation for all purposes
for instance, for homesteads, for pre-
emptions, location of other certificates
, etc. They close the door on the reserved
land as soon as they work in the veteran
certificates. But there was as much gu
thority for constituting 1t closed after
select few had got into the ark as for con
STRUNG it open for them to get into it. The
, argument is, if not absurd, certainly IN
constitutional, for the matter of veteran
certificates, the matter of Greer county
the matter of any previous law granting
the veteran certificates is not mentioned
in the title of the Confederate act. But
the constitution requires that the
purpose of an act shall be
expressed in its title. Judge
Walker, when the question of the validity
of these locations came before him, dis.
posed of this line of argument by saying
tions (of Confederate certifcltes) shall
be made on any of the public domain OF
Texas not reserved by law from location,
did not by implication enlarge the privi-
leges of the veteran certificates, nor does
it evidence an intent in the legislature to
pen the reservation to the veteran GER
titicate holders" The reservation act,
b }th veteran acts, and the Confederate
act, were ell passed during Gov. Roberts
administration of the government.
Almost his last official act
before he went out of office
four years ago was message to
the legislative relative to the then, and
now, existing boundary dispute. In that
message he saws: "But little progress
was made in this matter until after the
Seventeenth legislature
passed the law granting land certificates
of 1880 acres to the Texas veterans of
1886, whereupOn Col. John NJ. Swlsher,
one of the said veterans, interviewed me
as to the propriety and pract!cabilty of
getting the Legislature to pass law al
lowing these veteran certificates to be
located ia Greer county. My reply was
that if the claim of Texas could be
established and recognized while
Il was governor, l would GER
tainly ap67cge eny act of the legisls
ture allowing these veteran certificates
to be located in Greer county, provided
| the veterans retained an in crest in the
! lands located and their locations be made
SO as not to diminish the amount CT lands
therein devoted to public free schools
Ia addition to showing that he did not re-
gard the legislation eff 1881 as opening up
the reservation for IL appears that he
| thought g law necessary to dc that, it
shows that the holders Of the certificates
were Of the same opinion. ! may say
that when any man, lawyer or not, and
lawyer CT vide or confined fame, fluids hing
self differing in a matter of legal con-
strucLion with that great master OF the
law and Judicial philosopher it
is time for him to conclude
that somewhere in the process
OF his reasoning he has perhaps made &
great mistake. This statement is Gispar-
aging to no lawyer. 1t is a matter OF his
tory that he had encouraged the enact
ment of the law reserving Greer county
and appropriating it to the uses indicated
in 1t, with the hope of simplifying the set
tlement OF the boundary controversy with
the United States government. To the
last day OF his wise and marvelously pros
porous administration it does not seem to
have occurred to him that all the above
cited acts could not exist together in full
force. This extract from his message is
potential evidence of another fact That
is that he not only did not
believe that he had approved
an act which repealed or "cut short"
(whatever those words may mean, for
borrow them from the other side) the
reservation act, but that he did not in
tend at any future time to approve an act
that changed the status of the land until
the boundary question had teen settled.
He did not intend to violate the most OBJ
vious good faith by granting the land
away while we were seeking settlement
of the exceedingly important question OF
ownership, no matter how good and
strong our claim. 1t appears also that he
intended that locations should be made
there only when and on the condition that
the veterans themselves were beneficial
ries OF the locations. And although
locations had been made therein
IN 1882, it is quite apparent that be knew
nothing about them ON January 10, 1888,
the date of his message from which the
above extract is taken.
Now, in defiance of the laws of the
state reserving these lands, and pending
the unsettled questiCD of ownership and
in defiance, believe may say, of legal |
advice, locations were made in the terri !
torial limits of Greer county, and papers |
in the form of patents were issued at
tempting to grant away large amount !
of this land, perhaps some six or seven |
hundred thousand acres or more. !
These pretended patents have |
all been issued since the b.
ginning of the year 1888. 1t is only at
tri0uting to the patentees the exercise Of |
good common sense when we say that
they, having the pick Of the country, have
selected the most desirable land. The
streams have been tracked in their NEAL
derlngs and the water has been appro-
priated; wire fences have been strung
around vast amount of this land claimed
under these sO-called patents, and it has
been claimed as private property. The
people generally of the state have been
denied the right to use it il their accus-
toned way. So-called patents to nearly
$50, 900 acres of these lands were
issued to the constituent men,
ber5 of a land and cattle
domiciled at Austin, where
| may say most of the land is claimed.
The constituents of the corporation in
due time transferred their claim to the
land to the corporation. Il is hardly nee
essary to say that their pretended patents
were no patents at all. They were issued
tor reserved lands. Ali men were forbid
den TO locate them, and all men were for
hidden to sign the patents. The govern
ment denied the power to its officers to
sign these patents and forbade them to
sign them. The signing of them was not
IN official act and no ceremony could con- ,
vert it into an official act. A couple
IF good autographs and seal do not nee l
,ssarily always make q patent. The {
papers would be DO less valid if they had !